Lana and Darla are both down to their last pokemon! Lana's using her final trump card, her Shadow Corviknight. As for Darla, she's using her ace as well, her Altaria. But will Melody be strong enough to handle the brute strength of her opponent? Or will Ryder overwhelm the avian dragon with his powerful Shadow Moves? Be prepared, because this battle is about to take a shocking turn!
Arbiter8991: I think we'll find that Darla's line of thinking will prove correct in the end.
KedharS: Darla controls dragons, it's pretty hard not to be badass.
Venoms Cross 2: Damn right she is.
Tambry96bj: It should be an interesting fight, I'll say that much.
Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings
Chapter 1186
"Well, I'll give you points for confidence, thinking your Altaria can take down Ryder," Lana said, doing her best not to show Darla her own lack of confidence in the outcome of this fight. "But she won't be enough! Ryder, use shadow storm!"
"Corviknight!" Ryder squawked, flapping his wings and conjuring a massive tornado of raging shadows out of the air. Other pokemon needed to use shadow sky first to create the number of shadows in the air necessary to power a shadow storm, but Ryder was different. His wings were strong enough to create a tornado out of pure raw power.
In that sense, it was hardly a wonder why Lana thought that Darla would have a hard time defeating him with her Altaria.
But Darla didn't seem fazed.
"Those Shadow Moves are powerful, I'll admit that," Darla said. "And when it comes to raw power, sure, your Corviknight's probably got Melody beat. But Melody is strong too, strong enough to take him down!"
"Altaria!" Melody nodded in agreement, flapping her wings. The wind whipped around her and the sky began to twist and warp, making it hard to see her in the center of a strange-looking vortex.
"What's going on?" Lila asked, confused. It was like the air was twisting around Melody and shifting into something else.
"It's heat," Alden realized. "Those changes in the air are because there's an intense current of heat around her."
He was right on the money. Ryder had fired a tornado of shadow energy at Melody, and it was busy tearing through the sky towards her. But he wasn't the only pokemon capable of making the wind work to suit his needs. Melody summoned a massive heat wave that twisted into a tornado of her own.
The two wind attacks collided in the air, releasing an explosion of heat and shadow that filled the sky. Melody tucked her head in and flew right after it, ignoring the chances of being hit.
"Tailwind!" Darla ordered. Her Altaria conjured a powerful back breeze behind her that pushed her forward, even closer to Ryder.
"Ryder, counter it with your own tailwind!" Lana ordered. The two tailwinds countered one another, causing both pokemon's speed to even out. But that didn't mean they were equal.
Melody was faster than Ryder. Just by a hair, but it was enough to get her close.
"If you want to fight at close range, we can do that," Lana said confidently. "After all, you may have burned Ryder, but he's still got moves he can use! Façade!"
Ryder began to glow orange and he charged at Melody, preparing to collide with her in a powerful tackle.
But again, Melody was faster.
"Cotton guard," Darla ordered.
Lana flinched. "What?!"
"That's a bold play," Alden said, surprised.
Melody hadn't been charging at Ryder in order to attack, apparently. She got close to him, practically colliding with his wings, but all she did was release a burst of cotton from her wings that surrounded her body and interfered with his flight. Ryder hit the cloud of cotton and punched right through it, but the Altaria had already turned out of the way.
"This is a dogfight," Darla smirked. "Among the Draconid, it's tradition to have dragons charge at one another in the air and try to duke it out for supremacy. We do it for fun, like a sporting event. …Of course, the trainers are usually riding on the pokemon, so it's not nearly as tame as this, I'm afraid," she added.
Lana growled under her breath but didn't care. If Darla wanted to make a fool out of her, that was fine. This wasn't a match that would be settled by close-range combat anyway, that had been proved the moment Ryder had sustained a burn.
"Shadow storm!" She ordered.
"Corviknight!" Ryder tried his hand at another shadow storm, conjuring a tornado to blow Melody away. The dark wind swirled in a destructive current that he aimed at Melody from behind.
Darla shook her head. "You really don't understand anything, do you?" She asked. "I already defeated that move!"
"Altaria!" Melody squawked. And then she disappeared. She reappeared behind Ryder and struck him in the back with her beak. It wasn't enough to even break through the Steel type pokemon's metal armor, but it was enough to prove a point.
At her current speed, Melody was faster than Ryder. And most of Ryder's moves were useless against her due to his burn.
Lana had to start thinking smarter.
"Shadow mist!" She ordered. Ryder spun around and spread his wings, and summoned a thick black fog that stretched out towards Melody to try and bind her down.
"We won't be bound by you," Darla replied, shaking her head. "Melody, defog!"
"Altaria!" Melody flapped her wings and released gust of wind that dispersed the shadows, leaving an avenue open for her attack.
"Now, flamethrower."
It was the first attack Melody had used for the express purpose of hurting the pokemon in front of her. She opened her beak and fired a long stream of flames at the Corviknight, hitting him head-on.
The effect was instantaneous.
"CORVIKNIGHT!" Ryder wailed as the flames engulfed him. He flapped his wings desperately and managed to pull himself out of the line of fire, but again, Darla's point had been made.
This wasn't an even fight. It wasn't even close.
Lana began to sweat. She couldn't understand. Ryder was so powerful before, in the Phantom Cup. So why was Darla's Altaria so much stronger than him?
"I was surprised," Darla said quietly. "I didn't expect your Corviknight to be this far beneath Melody's level."
Lana's eye twitched. "What are you talking about?!" She demanded. "It's been MONTHS since the Phantom Cup, and I've been training with Ryder practically every morning since then! He should be much stronger than your Altaria!"
"What a coincidence, Melody and I have been training as well," Darla said, raising her eyebrow. "I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but not long after the Phantom Cup finished, my cousin came to pay me a visit!"
Lila gasped, remembering the blonde dragon fanatic.
"…So what?" Lana asked. Was she supposed to care about that?
"She showed me what I was lacking," Darla calmly explained. "That if I wanted to achieve my dream, it wasn't enough to chase it. I needed the strength to protect it as well. That's what I sought out, Lana, the strength to protect the people I care about. I have a goal that I must see through, and I'm willing to do anything to stop the people who would try to get in my way."
Lila practically swooned. Darla hadn't said it explicitly, but it was okay to think that she was talking about her, right? She was the reason Darla had been training so hard, right?
"But I don't understand!" Lana exclaimed. "I've been training Ryder as well, and yet… I don't understand, why…?"
"…I can explain that," Kiana said, catching everyone off guard. She'd been surprisingly quiet for a while now.
Lana flinched, turning to look back at her sister. "Huh? What are you talking about, sis?"
"That's not your sister!" Keya shouted, falling to his knees. A wave of revulsion rolled over him. "It's… it's her."
"That's right," Samarra nodded with Kiana's head. She turned to Lana and scowled. "I took the liberty of requesting your sister's help, because I've realized you aren't strong enough to handle that girl on your own."
"What?!" Lana exclaimed. "Of course I can! Ryder is incredibly powerful!"
"Looking through your memories I know that is the case," Samarra agreed. "But I've recently obtained some new information. Let me share it with you."
Samarra connected with Lana and let her see everything that she knew about Shadow Pokemon.
Lana gasped.
"That's right," Kiana nodded.
"What's going on?" Lila wailed, completely lost. Why was some other lady's voice coming out of this woman's mouth? She didn't get it at all.
"If I had to guess… Shadow Pokemon aren't just more savage pokemon with stronger moves, are they?" Darla asked, narrowing her eyes. "I'm right, aren't I? There's a drawback to this method. And I mean a real drawback, beyond just not being able to form a bond with your pokemon."
"That's right," Samarra nodded. "Shadow Pokemon… are incapable of leveling up or evolving."
It took a moment for that to sink in.
"…Seriously?" It was Giselle who said what everyone was thinking.
"That… makes sense," Ian said quietly. "Lana's other pokemon… her Flygon and her Sneasel… they were a lot stronger than they were in her match with me. I figured it was because she did some really serious training since the Phantom Cup, but her Corviknight…"
A skilled trainer like Ian had spotted it immediately. Lana's Corviknight, though no longer susceptible to Hyper Mode, had barely changed in the slightest. It was practically the same pokemon he had fought months ago.
"The process by which a pokemon is transformed into a Shadow Pokemon is quite fascinating," Samarra mused. "By necessity it closes the pokemon's heart and renders it incapable of bonding with their trainer, or other pokemon. In essence, it traps the pokemon's mind in a perpetual state of torment. And because of that, the pokemon sets a mental block on itself. It becomes incapable of leveling up or evolving because it's too traumatized. It can't grow, either mentally or physically. Strange…"
Samarra was either incapable of acknowledging, or unwilling to acknowledge, the fact that her own actions could be seen as traumatic, and to what extent she'd harmed her sister and rendered her incapable of growing up.
Not that she would have cared if she had.
"…Excuse me," Donoma said, raising her hand like she was in class, "but how exactly did you come upon this information?"
Donoma didn't know very much about Shadow Pokemon. And if she had to guess, not a lot of people did. Which meant that if Samarra had suddenly learned this new fact about Shadow Pokemon and shared it with Lana, then that meant, most likely, she had gotten the information from someone else- or more specifically, she had made a new friend.
And Donoma was very curious who that friend was.
"I learned it from my friend of course," Samarra said, seeing nothing wrong with sharing the information with someone who would soon become her friend anyway. "My dear Wes knows everything about Shadow Pokemon, he experienced firsthand the difficulty that comes with trying to evolve them, after all."
It took a second for that to sink in.
"…No way," Alden said, shaking his head.
"W-Wait, when she said 'Wes' is she talking about Victoria's d-dad?" Chloe asked, feeling her throat start to close up.
"Wait, for real!?" Raizer exclaimed. "But Vic's old man is like… super strong, right?! He even beat you, Alden!"
"That's right," Alden said. He was wearing an expression filled with an uncharacteristic amount of worry. Normally, he tried not to let much bother him or distract him from a good battle. And if his team were ready to fight, he would be happy to step up and try to take Wes down.
But his pokemon were still recovering from the gauntlet he'd fought at the Battle Tower, including Vic herself. He couldn't fight Wes, not in his present state.
And he didn't know anyone left who still could. Maybe Alcea? But she had probably gotten into a battle with someone else…
This was a really bad situation everyone found themselves in.
Samarra smiled.
"I see. So Wes's strength is frightening to you. That is good to know. Thank you."
"Speak for yourself," Darla spat. "I'm not afraid of anyone! If someone tries to threaten the people I care about, then I'll put 'em down, whoever they are! The same way Melody and I are going to put down this Corviknight!"
"Altaria!" Melody nodded in agreement.
"…I see, understood," Samarra nodded. "Well, then that makes my next decision easy."
She picked up Lana's backpack, which the trainer had discarded on the ground, and withdrew a seventh pokeball from it.
"Hey!" Lana shouted. "Wait a second! What are you doing?"
"Ensuring our victory," Samarra said, as if it was obvious. "If that girl is going to be a problem, then that problem must be eliminated."
Darla froze. Samarra was planning to attack her in the middle of the pokemon battle, just to make sure she couldn't win?
"But… isn't that against the rules?" Lana asked. Even though Samarra was her friend, Lana still respected the rules of a pokemon battle.
"I don't care about that," Samarra said bluntly, throwing out the pokeball.
"Beedrill!" A large Bug type pokemon emerged from the pokeball, holding her poisonous stingers out menacingly.
"Bree?!" Lana gasped.
Before the Phantom had given her the Corviknight, Lana had six pokemon of her own. Bree was her sixth, and the only pokemon she'd chosen not to use against Darla. With so many of her pokemon being part-Rock or part-Flying, and with all the flamethrowers being fired, she was too much of a liability. And a part of her still wanted to try getting through to Ryder, even if she didn't want it to go that far.
So much for that.
Bree looked questioningly at Lana, who was about to tell her to stand down, but Samarra asserted her influence and forced her head to nod.
"Beedrill…" Bree wasn't sure about this, but she wouldn't disobey orders.
"…Fine!" Darla spat, bracing herself. "Bring it on!"
"Altaria?!" Melody stared at her trainer in shock.
"Darla, are you crazy!?" Lila exclaimed. She wasn't seriously considering taking on a Beedrill by herself, was she?!
"Bree. Attack… the pink one," Samarra coldly ordered.
Darla blinked.
"…What?"
"BEEDRILL!" Bree shot forward and raised her stingers, but it wasn't Darla she was attacking.
It was Lila.
"Eeeyagh!" Lila fell back, going white as a sheet. It was a Poison type pokemon! And not just that, an icky Bug type Poison type pokemon! In the moment she knew she had a team of pokemon of her own to rely on, and even if none of them were trained to fight like Darla, they should at least be able to defend her against a Beedrill.
But they were Fairy types and they were bad against poison. And so was Lila, for that matter. So she froze.
She wasn't the only one who froze, though. Nobody else stepped in to lend a hand either, they were too stunned by the fact that Samarra would so brazenly attack someone who wasn't even fighting.
But then… Lana had done the exact same thing, hadn't she? They should have expected this.
"Did you think I would attack you?" Samarra smirked with Kiana's lips. "I've been playing close attention to this match through the eyes of my friends, Darla. I know how much that girl means to you, and I know that if I want to hurt you… I can do that by hurting her.
"Beedrill!" Bree hovered over Lila, her twin stingers aiming at the girl. But she hesitated. She wasn't a Shadow Pokemon, so she wouldn't attack another human so easily. Even Lana's Flygon had only been chasing the girls away, not actually aiming to hurt them.
That moment of hesitation was exactly what Melody needed to strike. She hit Bree with a powerful aerial ace, knocking the Bug type pokemon away.
"Darla!" Lila blubbered, wiping the tears from her eyes. Darla stepped defensively in front of Lila, glaring at the pair of siblings and their pokemon.
"So that's how it's going to be, huh?" She growled. "Well, fine then! If you're going to attack Lila, then I'll take you both on!"
"Altaria!" Melody nodded.
"Attack her!" Samarra urged Lana, overwhelming her better judgment.
"Ryder, drill peck." The words slipped from her lips before she could even think.
"Corviknight!" Ryder flapped his wings and circled around Darla, aiming his beak right at Lila and spinning like a drill. Unlike Bree, there was no hesitation in a Shadow Pokemon.
"Melody! Stop her!" Darla shouted. Melody leapt in front of Lila and raised her wings, trying to stop the momentum of Ryder's drill peck by releasing another cloud of cotton down. The cotton was swept up in the rotation of Ryder's body and slowed him down enough to reduce the attack's penetrating power, and it barely punctured her wings at all.
But there was more than one drill to worry about.
"Poison jab," Samarra ordered.
"Beedrill!" Bree appeared behind Melody and raised both her stingers, their tips dripping with noxious poison. She unleashed a barrage against the Altaria's back, which remained unguarded, and the stingers delivered their devastating payload.
"ALTARIA!" Melody screeched, feeling the poison coursing through her system.
"Melody!" Lila wailed.
Darla winced. It was no use. Melody was strong, she was more than a match for either of those pokemon.
But she couldn't be in two places at once. She couldn't wage a battle on two fronts, even with her advantages, and now she was suffering from poison.
Darla didn't know what to do. Her Altaria was barely able to stay in the air, and she wasn't sure she could pull out a victory in this battle now that they were outnumbered.
This is all my fault… I should have kept a closer eye on that woman… I thought that since she wasn't a pokemon trainer I didn't have to worry about her doing anything, but because of that, now Lila is… her friend was in danger due to Darla's misjudgment. And that was something that made her feel sick. She had to settle this. Now.
What a dirty trick! Samarra doesn't have any respect for pokemon battles at all! And poor Lana, forced to do something she thinks is wrong, due to Samarra's brainwashing. It really isn't fair. But there's not a lot that can be done now that Samarra is in control of things. As for Darla and Lila… things really aren't looking good for them now, are they? This was a normal pokemon battle at first, but with a seventh pokemon added to the mix, it's going to be tough.